Bert’s May Dividend Income Summary

What a month it has been. The Cavs began their postseason push, the weather was beautiful, I had a nice vacation to New England, and I received some nice dividend checks this month! What could be better. Over the weekend, Lanny put together a rock solid list highlighting the dividend income received by some of you in the dividend investing community. And I must say, that was one impressive list and it was fun to see how well everyone else performed. It helps me focus and continue to push myself to build income streams as large as all of yours. Some great motivation! Anyways, Lanny left one person off of the list…me. What the heck Lanny? So let’s fix that and see how well I stacked up against myself and others during the month of May.

Dividend Income Summary

In May, I received $127.52 in dividend income, an increase of 82% compared to May 2014 and 21% compared to February 2015. I know I’ve said it time and time again (and you all are probably getting sick of hearing me say it), but we have all made some tremendous progress in our dividend portfolios. If you want proof, just look at Lanny’s article and see how amazing of a job everyone has done. Seeing your income increase year over year just provides me the extra juice and motivation needed to continue saving as much money as possible, so I can continue to invest and get the dividend snowball rolling faster and faster. So I have officially stepped off of my soap box now and am ready to review how my dividend income increased compared to last month and year. It is pretty simple actually, and I can point to two separate events that triggered the increase. Let’s take a look!

This transaction only impacts my annual growth as I have owned this stock for just under a year now. Last June I initiated a $2k position in HCP, which added quite the punch to my dividend income considering HCP’s high dividend yield and their recent dividend increase. The healthcare REIT has had a tough year and as the stock continues to fall into the high 30s, I may be tempted to take a page out of Lanny’s book and purchase some more of the large healthcare REIT. Is the company perfect at the moment? No and there are some short-term issues. However, the company is a Dividend Aristocrat and to me, that shows the company knows how to weather short-term storms and find a way to survive and succeed in the long-term. Regardless, this purchase last June is the driver for my year over year dividend increase
Secondly (HCP is going to make another appearance here), this is the first month I am receiving the positive impact from my sale of ARCP back in January. When I sold ARCP, I invested the capital evenly into three companies: HCP, NWFL, and CZNC. The fun fact about these companies, which I didn’t realize at the time, is that they all pay dividends in the second month of the quarter. Since I missed the ex-dividend date for the February round of dividends, May represents the first month I received a check from my new investments. Considering the lowest yield of the three companies is 4.34% (CZNC), I couldn’t be happier.

Dividend Increases

This month was a boring and disappointing month for my portfolio in terms of dividend increases, as none of my stocks increased their dividend in May. But it wasn’t supposed to be that way! Two of the oil stocks I own, Shell and Chevron, were supposed to announce an increase in May; however, due to the oil environment, both companies passed on increasing their dividend. Is it aggravating as heck…yes, especially considering I purchased Chevron a few months ago and cited their strong dividend growth history has a reason for purchasing. . But I understand given the depressed crude prices. Hopefully the increases will begin again when the oil market rebounds and reverts back to the status quo. But if there is anything investing has taught me, it is who knows what will happen next.

Summary

So circling back now, if Lanny would have included me in his article, where would I have finished. The answer…second last! Even worse, Hey Dividend Empire, take note of this day, because we are going to laugh our you-know-whats-off when we have higher dividend income than Lanny, Dividend Mantra, Dividend Hustler, and all of the other people ahead of us on this list one day. As I mentioned before, seeing everyone’s progress motivates me and pushes me to continue to grow my dividend income because I want to be at their levels one day. So everyone ahead of me, you are officially on notice. There is a dividend storm coming your way so you better watch out!

How were your month’s of May? How would you have stacked up on the list of blogger’s income? Have you purchased HCP recently during their down period? Are they even on your watch list? Dividend Empire…are you ready to take these people ahead of us down?

-Bert